huv 5 1900 




The 

Real 

Ramona 






of Helen Hunt Jackson's 
Famous Novel 



D. A. HUPrORD & CO., PUBLISHERS 
226 West Sixth Street Los Angeles, Gal. 






IWV 5 1900 

Copyright entry 

,NJ».^')v'l.A:^..An 

! StCCND COPY. 
I Ofclivwcri to 

OftOH OSViSION, 
;0V 23 1900 




I i; 






THE REAL RAMONA 

Of Mrs. Helen Hunt Jackson^s 
Famous Novel is alive and 
well at this writing. We have been 
asked so many times to direct 
tourists how to get to the places 
where she was born and wedded, that 
we concluded to get out this little 
booklet, giving the truthful side of 
Mrs. Jackson's famed fictitious nar- 
rative of Ramona^ written in her 
easy and beautiful style. She lives 
to-day about the same as she did 
sixteen years ago, with the exception 
of course that she is older and not so 
trim and spruce like a young Indian 
maiden would like to be — in other 
words, she is now like all other 
Indian women become as they grow 
older, greasy and slovenly^ with no 

3 



thought of cleanliness or tidiness. 
She was and is only an Indian, but 
was fortunate enough to be raised 
by one of the loveliest and most hos- 
pitable Spanish ladies that Southern 
California ever knew, and that lady 
was Mrs. Y. B. de Couts^, widow of 
the late Col. Cave Johnson Couts, 
born in Tennessee in 182 1, came to 
California in 1848, a West Point 
graduate, served in the Mexican war, 
married Ysidora Bandini and moved 
to San Diego where he served as 
judge. In 1854, he moved to the 



*Ba7ieroft's Butory of California spells the 
name with two '* if.s-," but whenever Mrs. de 
Couts sigued her name she always prefixed the 
little "de," which I suppose is correct when the 
surname of the lady preceds that of her husband. 
Thus : "Ysidora Bandini de Couts." The Amer- 
icans spells Ysidora with an "7." Bancroft says 
perhaps Coutts ought to be spelt with one ** f." 



Rancho Guajome, a wedding gift of 
Abel Stearns to Dona Ysidora, and 
there he spent the rest of his life, 
becoming rich in lands and live stock, 
always popular and respected, though 
as bitter in his enmities as warm in 
his friendships, making Guajome a 
center of the famed hospitality of 
Southern California. Col. Couts 
died in 1875, when he was 54 years 
old. His widow, Ysidora, died on the 
Rancho in 1897, leaving eight surviv- 
ing children. 

It was in 1884, that Mrs. Helen 
Hunt Jackson brought before the 
public her famous novel, Ramona. 
It has been conceded to be one of the 
best-written novels portraying the 
Indian, his habits, and general mode 
of living. The book is more sought 

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after to-day than it was sixteen years 
ago, and it will never grow old and 
out of date. The future generation 
will read it, and it will always be a 
book that the prominent characters 
in it will never grow old and weary 
to the reader. 



While Mrs. Jackson idealized the 
principal characters in her master- 
piece, Ramona^ and while the inci- 
dents and places in her narrative are 
fictitious so far as their chronology 
and the causes and effects are con- 
cerned, the book is a beautiful and 
faithful story. The three characters 
are so strong and clearly drawn as to 
be very easily identified. The set- 
tings, the scenes, and the various 
trysting places are always exact, 

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Mrs. Jackson spent a considerable 
portion of the 5^ears 1879, 1880 and 
1 88 1 in SoutHern California, as a 
sketch writer of Indian life in the 
ancient Franciscan missions for the 
Ce7itury Magazine, and at the same 
time preparing the copy for her 
Ramona, which the reading public 
has never gotten tired of It is only 
rare cases that you will not find 
Ramona upon the shelves of family 
libraries. 

The motive and the principal set- 
tings for her wonderful story in the 
region occupied by the ancient and 
scanty Mission Indian tribes in San 
Diego county, lies between Oceanside 
on the west and San Jacinto and 
Temecula on the east, among the 
sun-burnt hills and chaparral. 



II 



Nearly all of these places were 
tiny hamlets when Mrs. Jackson 
studied the natives, but since then 
the Santa Fe railroad has been built 
through the region, they have be- 
come progressive, American villages. 

There are very few spots where the 
old-time Spanish ranchero, with its 
princely hospitality, its extraordinary 
generosity, its delightful manana 
(to-morrow) customs, remain at all 
intact. These few spots are in the 
several old Spanish settlements on 
the line of the Santa Fe railroad from 
Santa Ana to Oceanside. One who 
would look upon the dreamy and 
lazy life of the Indians, as the gifted 
author of Ramona saw it, must go a 
score of miles inland from the rail- 
road stations back among the foothills 

13 



and mountains, where the chaparral, 
mesquite and juniper trees grows. 

The most charming home of them 
all is the old Mexican grant, the 
Rancho Guajome, just north of San 
Diego and near Oceanside, stands ihe 
remains of the beautiful mission — 
San Luis Hgij de Francia (custom has 
dropped " de Francia "), founded by 
Padre Peyri, and made famous to the 
world by the genius of Mrs. Jackson. 
It is still in a splendid state of pres- 
ervation, kept up principally by 
Mrs de Couts during her life-time, 
but each year stamps its works of 
destruction upon it. 

The late Mrs. Y. B. de Couts was 
the Senora at the hospital Rancho 
Guajome. Senora de Couts and Mrs. 
Jackson became bosom friends. The 

15 



lovely character of Senora Moreno 
was modeled to a nicet}' from Mrs. de 
Couts, and is an excellent portrayal 
of that lady's character, which could 
not be over-estimated. She was a 
direct descendant of the Bandini 
family of Los Angeles. Juan Bandini 
came with the "Higar colony " to Los 
Angeles in 1834, organized by him- 
self and J. M, Padres. He was a 
man of good traits, jovial tempera- 
ment, a most interesting man socially, 
well-liked and respected and helped 
to make the history complete in 
Southern California. He died in 
1859. The children by his first wife 
were : Arcadia, Mrs Abel Stearns, 
later Mrs. Robt. S. Baker; Ysidora, 
wife of Col. Cave Johnson Couts ; 
Josefa, wife of Pedro C. Carrillo; 
Jose Maria, whose wife was Teresa 

17 



Arguello, Juanita. By his second wife, 
Refugio, were: Juau de la Cruz, 
H Alfredo, Antonio and two daughters, 
' Mrs. Chas. R. Johnson and Mrs. Dr. 

James B. Winston. Mr. Baudini's 
daughters were famous for their 
beaut}^ All or most all of his chil- 
dren still live in Southern Califor- 
nia, some wealthy, all in comforta- 
ble circumstances and the very best 
family connections and well liked, 
and noted far and wide and in the 
State of California for their hospital- 
ity to the " gringoes " (Americans). 
Mrs. de Gouts was the lady who made 
the first flag used by the Americans, 
J prior to California becoming part of 
m the Union. The Bandini family 
were one of the strongest union sym- 
pathizers in California. Mrs. de Couts 
was one of the sweetest ladies that the 

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writer ever met, and that was in the 
winter of 1888, while residing at San 
Diego, whose house was always 
open to her old and new friends as 
long they chose to abide there. 

Mrs. Jackson made the acquaint- 
ance of Mrs. de Couts while she 
and her husband were driving through 
the country from Los Angeles to San 
Diego in June, 1878. Mr. and Mrs. 
Jackson were invited to tarry at the 
beautiful hacienda of the Rancho 
Guajome, and the Americans were 
charmed by the beauty of the ranch, 
the hospitality of the house and 
particularly by the loveliness of their 
hostess, then advancing in age. 

The story of Ramona was born 
there from little incidents that Mrs. de 



31 



Couts happened to tell Mrs. Jackson 
of the series of hardships and wander- 
ings of a young Indian couple among 
the Pachango Indians in that locality 
had endured, because of the land- 
grabbing of rapacious white settlers. 
The Indian husband had been shotto 
death by a Deputy Sheriff, and the 
young widow was at that time incon- 
solable in her grief. 

The possibilities of a unique and 
powerful stor}^ along the lines of the 
persecution of the Mission Indians 
flashed through Mrs. Jackson's mind. 
She became interested at once, and 
delaying her visit to San Diego a 
fortnight, she began the framework 
of her novel. She had known person- 
ally of the Indian troubles in Colo- 
rado and New Mexico, and that 

23 



knowledge was an aid in lier proposed 
work. 

In the fall and winter of 1879-80, 
the active work of writing and com- 
piling Ramona began. Mrs. Jack- 
son spent months at the home of Mrs. 
de Couts, on the Rancho Guajome. 
Every morning she was occupied in 
writing the great story. Once a week 
or once a fortnight, Mrs. Jackson went 
out on an exploring tour of the 
country from Oceanside, over the 
hills and through the little valleys 
and canyons toward Temecula. 
Returning to her secluded room at 
the Rancho Guajome, she would 
add new ideas to her narrative or 
reconstruct a bit of description of the 
scenery or the Indian life as she had 
pictured them. 

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D 

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o 

o 
o 

D 

O 
O 

4-" 

Q. 



In September, 1880, Mrs. Jackson 
went to live in San Jacinto, which 
as then a mere settlement of Spanish 
and a few Americans on the border of 
the reservation of the Saboba and 
Cahuilla tribes of Mission Indians. 
There the novel progressed more 
rapidly. This quaint old pueblo of 
Saboba was visited time and again by 
Mrs. Jackson that winter. There the 
narrative of Ramona's sorrowful wan- 
derings from Temecula to San Diego, 
thence to San Pasqual and Saboba, in 
search of a spot where she might 
abide in peace, were so pathetically 
written. In the spring of 188 1, further 
labor was put on the book at Temec- 
ula, where Mrs. Jackson had gone 
to get the local color of the Pachango 
tribe, and to get new ideas for the 
delineation of the characters of 

27 



Ramona and Alessaudro, whicli were 
so sympathetically touching. 

The final touches were put on the 
story in the fall of 1883 ^^ Los An- 
geles, but there were *many little 
alterations made in the proofs of the 
story before it appeared in public in 
New York in 1884. 

The character of Ramona was 
drawn from real life, although it was 
so idealized that a multitude of people 
acquainted with the Mission Indian 
life have declared it was the pure 
work of a great creative fictional 
genius. During the sixteen years 
that Ramona has been religiously 
read by nine-tenths of the people in 
Southern California, there have been 
few more generally mooted questions 
than that concerning the individuality 

29 



of tlie character Ramona. There is 
never a winter passes but what the 
tourist delights in reading and visit- 
ing the old home of Ramona, as w^ell 
as her present home. 

However, there was and there still 
is a Ramona, She is the wdfe of Jose 
Machado, a half-breed Indian, who 
lives on the Pachango Indian reserva- 
tion near Temecula, in San Diego 
count3^ Jose is the second husbai^d. 
Her first husband, w^ho was the 
Alessandro of Helen Hunt Jackson's 
storv^, was Ramon Corallez. Her 
maiden name was Lugardo Sandoval. 
She never knew who her parents 
were. How her name came to be 
given her by the good old padre at the 
christening at the mission at San 
Luis Rey she does not know. She 

31 



was in the service of Mrs. de Couts at 
the Rancho Guajome until she was 
twelve years old. Then she was 
taken north to Ventura county by 
the cousins of Mrs. de Couts, who had 
taken a fancy to the orphan girl, and 
had noticed her uncommonly cleanly 
domestic ways and her thoughtful 
face. At the Camulos ranch in Ven- 
tura county, in the sheep-shearing 
time, Lugardo met Ramon Corallez. 
The elopement southward toward Los 
Angeles occurred, as it has so charm- 
ingly been told in Ramona^ but the 
marriage of Lugardo and Ramon 
(Ramona and Alessandro) took place 
at the mission of San Luis Rey a7id 
not at San Diego, as the author made 
the alteration for artistic reasons. 
Young Ramon Corallez and his girl 
bride experienced all the pitiful 



33 




^• 



Rarr)or)a's Son. 



episodes that Ramona and Alessandro 
experienced, and were under the 
watchful eye of Mrs. de Couts (Senora 
Moreno), as outlined in the story. 

In October, 1877, Ramon was shot 
and killed by Samuel Temple, of San 
Jacinto, for alleged horse stealing, and 
Lugardo, frightened and broken- 
hearted, fled across the mountains to 
the Rancho Guajome, and told her 
fresh sorrows to Mrs. de Couts. 

When Mrs. Jackson stopped at the 
ranch a year later, she heard the story 
of Lugardo and Ramon and was 
touched. Last summer, while out 
Kodaking during our vacation we saw 
Mrs. Machado at her home of straw 
and chaparral near Temecula. It was 
a long, dusty drive. About eighty 

35 



Indian huts and grass houses are 
scattered about in a little valley 
among the sunburnt hills, and how 
the people manage to get even the 
scantiest of living was a baffling 
puzzle to us, as we toiled up a mesa 
from the canyon road to the crude 
habitation which had been pointed 
out as the home of Ramona. 

A dark but pleasant-faced Indian 
woman sat on the ground in the shade 
of the hovel as we approached. She 
was puffing at a corn husk cigarette, 
and taking it from her mouth looked 
inquiringly at her visitor. We in- 
formed her that we had come many 
miles across the country from San 
Jacinto to interview her about how 
she happened to be the Ramona in 
the book of that name. 

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She held down her head and there 
was a long silence. 

*^ Oh, you 'nother one who wants to 
know about Ramona and Mrs. 
Jackson," she replied. " Heap folk 
used come here all time and ask about 
Ramona book. Now, not many here. 
More come in winter bye and bye. 
Some heap nice too me all same. 
Folks get tired to here me talk, and 
other folks say me no tell truth about 
Ramona." 

Another and longer silence. 

Finally, after a generous donation 
of bags of smoking tobacco and pack- 
ages of cigarette papers, some red 
handkerchiefs and beads, we induced 
the Indian woman to talk about her- 
self, notwithstanding her aversion to 
telling the oft- told tale. 

39 



" Yes, Mrs. Jackson know me heap 
well," she stated. " One day when I 
live at Rancho Guajome, after Sam 
Temple shoot poor Ramon dead, 
Senora Couts send for me to come see 
lady in the house. I go in with 
Senora Couts and see Mrs. Jackson. 
She was fine lady. Speak so soft and 
sweet to me about how poor Ramon 
got killed, and I cry with her when I 
tell her how I love poor Ramon . Mrs . 
Jackson ask me to sit down on bench 
on porch and tell Senora, and Senora 
she tell Mrs. Jackson all about awful 
hard times me and Ramon have with 
white folks. Mrs. Jackson she like 
to hear me tell how poor Indians get 
robbed and starved and killed by 
white men. She say we all time have 
white men cheat us, and she feel so 
sorry for us. She was first 'Mericano 

41 



S!:i«*"i:«>SiW"<>\'^^:^o'^SS5: 








Ramooa's Twios. 



who seem to like poor Indian and say 
white man who rob and kill us no 
good. She no sa}^ then she going 
write book about Ramon and Lugardo. 

" I never read book Ramona^ I no 
read English good. I read Spanish 
heap fine. Senora de Couts, who now 
dead, she tell me all Mrs. Jackson 
have in heap big book about me and 
Ramon. Ever}^ week for long time 
white folks come and say to me, 'Are 
you Ramona?' I sa}'' 'yes.' Then they 
tell me I no look like Ramona in 
book. I laugh and say, 'Well, I no 
pretty now because I have heap suffer 
all time, and I no more good and 
clean like when I was mission girl.' 
People laugh at my poor talk and go 
away and say they no think me 
Ramona. But I Ramona, all same, 

43 



LrJO. 



she said," with an indignant look at 
the very idea of anyone ever doubting 
her word or identity 

Ramona has three children, one a 
bright looking boy, and two girls, 
who are twins, who look very much 
like their mother, and are as much 
interested in Ramona as she is. 

" How many times did you see 
Mrs. Jackson?" we asked. 

*^ I see her seven, six times at 
Rancho Guajome, and she writes on 
paper what I tell Senora de Couts and 
Senora tell her. You see I no talk 
good English then like now. I speak 
Spanish fine, and Mrs. Jackson she 
say to Senora de Couts how she want 
me to tell. Next year when I 
married Jose Corallez and live 

45 



in Temectila, slie come there and see 
me. She speak little Spanish and I 
know little English, so we make 
some more talk together. She tell 
me to ask other Indians how white 
man drive them off land where their 
father and mother lived. She write 
as I tell her what Indians say to me. 
She say she feel sorry for Indians. 
She no like white man. She ask me 
heap things how Indians like padres, 
and how Indian girls learn to get 
good in missions. I tell her all I can 
think, and she ask me a heap of 
other things, how w^e sing and pray, 
and how we have good times. Mrs. 
Jackson she very fine lady. I like 
her so very mnch. I like to see her 
again. She talk nice and sweet to 
me. I feel sad some many times. 
I now go. Adios." 

47 



After all, no matter how illiterate 
tlie Indian may seem to be, they have 
a sensitive nature, and before you are 
entirely through, they get right up 
and say " adios" — and that settles it. 

That was the end of the interview 
with the real Ramona of Mrs, Helen 
Hunt Jackson's Famous Novel. 



Tourists and friends of Mrs Helen Hunt 
Jackson and her famous %amona will find 
many souvenirs connected with their lives 
in the Chamber of Commerce of Los 
Angeles recently presented by Mrs. 
Mariana W. de Coronel, whose husband 
also came in the " Higar colony" to 
California, when a lad with his father, Don 
Ygnacio Coronel. The collection contains 
many rare relics of early California life, of 
which Mrs. Coronel refused $30,000 for it. 
They are all labeled and catalogued for the 
inspection of the public. 

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5 1900 



Li^'ST "" CONGRESS 




015 971 348 9 j 



